To Burn the Castle Down
by DarkPriestessofAssimbya
Summary: After the events of the novel, Jonathan keeps his promise to Mina, despite all the costs.


"To dim the sun before the summer ends; to burn the castle down before the princess is awake; to kill a love when it's still so

"_To dim the sun before the summer ends; to burn the castle down before the princess is awake; to kill a love when it's still so alive – I would not do it, my heart would break." – Dracula the Musical_

Mina lay before him on the bed, eyes closed, trusting. She had always trusted him, even when he had just returned from Transylvania and didn't trust himself. It amazed him, how both peaceful and vulnerable she could look there and then, almost inhumanly beautiful with it. Her white nightgown and deathly pale skin meant that, were it not for her dark hair spread out over the pillow, she could easily have faded into the white sheets of the bed.

"I can't do this," he whispered.

Her eyes flashed open at that. She was not crying. But of course – he had seen her, late at night, when she thought he wouldn't notice, curled up in a corner of the bed, crying like a young girl. No doubt she did not need to cry any longer. "Jonathan, please," she reached up to grasp his free hand as she spoke, her touch like ice, "you must. You promised me that you would, when the time came."

As she spoke, her fangs were visible in between her pale lips. Jonathan shuddered despite himself, and she noticed, her voice quavering. "See! I disgust even you now. I don't want to live like that." She pressed her eyes shut, as though not trusting herself to look at him. "Please, Jonathan."

If she didn't trust herself to look at him, he didn't trust himself to speak. Shivering with suppressed sorrow, emotion that he must hold back now, for her sake at least, he leaned down over her, touching his lips to hers gently, so gently. She didn't open her eyes even at that, as though, if she saw him during this, she wouldn't be able to bear dying and leaving him forever. Slowly, unwillingly, Jonathan pulled away from her, letting go of her hand as he did so, and picked up the stake and hammer on the bedside table – she herself had placed them there, so that he had seen them when he entered the bedroom.

Oh, god, he couldn't do this.

But he placed the point of the stake carefully over her heart (she shuddered at the contact, but didn't open her eyes or speak) and lifted the hammer above his head. "Goodbye," he murmured, no louder than a breath.

He thought he saw Mina mouth "goodbye" in return, but wasn't sure.

And then, with all the strength in his whole being, he brought down the hammer upon the base of the stake, driving it deep in her heart.

Blood spurted out and into Jonathan's eyes, briefly blinding him until he could blink it away, and Mina gave a gasp, one of pain and probably a thousand other things that Jonathan couldn't even imagine. When he could see again, Mina wasn't breathing anymore, and the garish red of her blood was staining the front of her nightgown.

Unable and unwilling to hold himself up any longer, Jonathan let himself collapse upon her body, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. He tried to let himself sob, but it was as though there was something in him that refused to break, even though there was no one to be strong for any longer.

-

He sent a telegraph out to both Jack and Arthur immediately afterwards, more terse even than usual for a telegraph, and then went to sit alone in the downstairs parlor, not bothering to turn a lamp on. He poured himself a glass of brandy, but it tasted bitter and unpleasant.

He didn't know how long it was that he sat there alone – it could have been hours, for the faint glow of the setting sun turned to something far darker than the dim of twilight in the interval – but eventually Jack and Arthur arrived together, coming in through the unlocked door when it became obvious that Jonathan wasn't going to answer their persistent knocking.

As they both entered the parlor, one of them clicked the gas lamp on, causing Jonathan to blink for a moment at the sudden brightness. From the widening of Jack and Arthur's eyes and the way they immediately started back, Jonathan guessed that Mina's blood must be particularly obvious on his hands and face, at least.

"Good god, Jonathan, what's happened?" Jack asked finally, after a moment of speechlessness.

How was he to begin? Jonathan said nothing, his grip upon his glass of brandy tightening, his knuckles whitening as he did so.

A pause. "Where's Mina?" Arthur asked, his voice quiet.

Jonathan closed his eyes in sudden pain.

That seemed to be answer enough. "You sit with him," Jonathan heard Jack say, "I'll go upstairs."

As he heard the creaking of furniture, Jonathan opened his eyes again. Arthur had seated himself in one of the chairs nearby, his eyes crinkled with worry. There was a long moment when the only sound in the room was their breathing, and then Arthur asked, his voice so low that it was barely audible, "She asked you to do it, didn't she?"

Jonathan didn't know how it was that Arthur had guessed, but he nodded, in the small movement of his head that he could possibly make.

There was another silence then. Jonathan looked at Arthur. There was something in his face that Jonathan couldn't identify, sorrow and memory. "I'm sorry." It was the sort of statement that could have sounded ridiculous, a meaningless platitude, but somehow, from Arthur, there was an incredibly weight of honesty in it.

Abruptly, Jonathan remembered that Arthur had been the one to drive the stake through Lucy's heart.

Jack returned soon after that, an unusual pallor in his face, rubbing his spectacles with a handkerchief. His eyes were red. "Jonathan – " he began, but stopped, apparently at a loss for words. He exchanged several significant glances with Arthur.

"Come," Jack said finally, "let's get you cleaned up."

-

Jack dealt with the body, for which Jonathan was as grateful as he could manage to be under the circumstances. For his part, Jonathan refused even to go back to the bedroom until the bloodstained sheets and mattress were gone from it. He drank glass after glass of brandy in the parlor, ignoring the bitter, unpleasant taste of it, allowing it to lull his mind into a dull haze where nothing quite seemed solid, not himself or Arthur or the memories behind his eyelids.

The funeral was arranged for as soon as possible, in an efficient combination of Arthur's title and Jack's professionalism. And most of the undertaker's duties were done by Jack himself, who refused to let anyone involved in the funeral see the mutilated body. It would most certainly not be an open casket funeral. Arthur and Jack tried to keep such details from Jonathan, but he heard them anyway, and didn't much care – what did any of that matter to him?

It was a small funeral, mostly because of the short notice. Jonathan, Jack, and Arthur, of course. Mina's aunt, and two of her cousins and their families. A few of the other teachers at the school where she had worked. They had contacted the Professor about it, but he would never have been able to get there in time, and was too sick to leave Amsterdam in any case.

Though he would never have said so much, the whole ceremony made him feel rather sick. The pastor up in front with his generic verses from the Bible, the shining wood of the coffin…it was all nothing more than a mockery when Jonathan could remember Mina's body cooling in his arms, the terrible feel of her blood on his skin. And all those thoughts made him want to bury his face in hands out of pure shame.

The lowering of the coffin into the grave was even more unpleasant. He had to stand right up near the headstone, as the closest relative, and he felt as though the eyes of all the mourners were upon him, searching for a sign of either indifference or weakness.

He wondered, in a moment of painful, inescapable morbidity, whether Jack had taken the stake out of her chest.

The service was over quickly, at least, and immediately afterwards, the mourners began to dissipate, leaving in groups of twos and threes, murmuring words that all sounded the same to Jonathan, like the cooing of doves. For an instant, it looked as if Jack and Arthur would stay with him, but a glance from Jonathan made it clear that he would rather be alone.

Eventually, only one other man was left remaining at the gravesite – tall and thin, dressed all in black. He looked up, meeting Jonathan's eyes.

Jonathan turned away.

-

He went back to work soon after, because anything was better than sitting alone in the quiet house, drinking endless glasses of brandy and trying to read some book that Mina had bought for him. The firm was filled with strangers, though, now that Mr. Hawkins was gone, and it seemed that each of them passed by his desk, laying a heavy hand on his shoulder and saying, in what passed for a sympathetic tone, "My condolences, Harker." Jonathan would nod, hardly looking up from his work, and they would go away, muttering to one another about his white hair and antisocial habits.

Over lunch, he began to read Victor Hugo's _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_. He managed to get immersed in it, the world of Hugo's beautiful phrases enrapturing him, until he read a paragraph and thought suddenly, _I have to tell Mina about this._

After that, he couldn't manage to read anymore of the book.

-

Arthur invited him for dinner one evening. Jonathan accepted the invitation, though he felt rather as though he wouldn't manage to say the right things to Arthur – he had never known him particularly well, when it came down to it. It was always Mina who had won the hearts of Arthur, Jack, Quincey, and the Professor, listening to sympathetically and coming up with such clever ideas. Jonathan had just gone along with everything, quiet and resolute. And, though he had been able to talk perfectly amicably with Arthur as they traveled together through Transylvania, a formal dinner was quite a different matter.

As it turned out, Arthur didn't seem to be all that certain of what to say to Jonathan either, stuttering over the expensive, well cooked meal. Finally, though, he began talking about Mina, and seemed at least to know what to say, though it was hardly a comfortable topic. "She was truly a remarkable woman, Jonathan, so…so brave. You did the right thing."

Jonathan nodded, a sour taste beginning in his mouth. "I know." Of course he knew – he had only held to his promise after all, not made some sort of personal decision. Indeed, in that bedroom, Mina's eyes imploring him, it had seemed as if there was no choice.

It must have been different for Arthur, Lucy thrashing and screaming, the Professor reassuring him of the morality of his actions in his loud, accented voice.

Jonathan tried to imagine what it would have been like for him if that was what it had come to, if Mina's mind had been lost to bloodlust before he could free her soul, and he had to remember his promise to her even as she begged him for mercy.

He couldn't quite imagine it.

Despite Arthur's earnest eyes, Jonathan didn't stay for dessert.

-

When Jonathan got home, there was a single candle burning in the parlor. The Count was sitting there, in the same chair where Jonathan had sat after Mina's death, the light of the candle playing over his face.

For a moment, Jonathan heard his heartbeat loud in his ears, remembered locked doors and teeth in his neck and Mina screaming. But then he breathed deeply and found himself eerily calm, just as he had been when he saw the Count at the gravesite. _Nothing more to lose, he_ heard in his head, like a mantra. He wondered if it was true.

"I thought you had to be invited in," he said softly.

If the expression on the Count's face meant something, it was indecipherable to Jonathan. "I already have been." Jonathan didn't let himself ponder the implications of that. "Come, sit down," the Count continued.

For an instant, Jonathan considered protesting the absurdity of the Count inviting him to sit down in his own house, but, somehow, it didn't seem as absurd as it should. He sat down in a chair a few inches from the Count. Briefly, the parlor could just as easily have been the Count's library.

The Count regarded Jonathan, his green eyes searching his face frankly. Jonathan didn't look away, or blink. The fear surging in his veins was an almost welcome alternative to the dull ache of sorrow, like a slowly healing bone. When the Count finally opened his mouth to speak, Jonathan could have guessed what he would say. "You killed her."

It wasn't an accusation, or a question. Just a statement.

"It was what she wanted," Jonathan wet his lips, the silence of the room deafening, "if she had wanted to go with you, I would have let her. If she wanted me to come with her, I would have done that as well. But this was what she wanted." As he said it, he realized it was true.

"She was frightened," an edge came into the Count's voice then, though not one Jonathan could have easily described, "like a child afraid of things that will one day be good for her. It was a wish coming from hysteria, and unnecessary guilt. You oughtn't have assisted her in it."

Jonathan's voice was quiet. "She made a will. She took her money out of her bank account and put it in mine. It was a rational decision."

"I might have let you be with her, if she had come with me," the Count leaned over as he spoke, placed a cold palm upon Jonathan's cheek. It wasn't temptation, wasn't intended to be. "I imagine that you knew that, didn't you? That I would perhaps have let the two of you lie together in one coffin, married still in a thousand ways. You would have both had to make compromises, but I would reward you for the making of them. It would not have been unendurable."

Jonathan closed his eyes, thought of Mina doing the same thing with the tip of the stake over her heart. "She never compromised," he whispered, knowing the Count would hear him, "she told me that once."

The Count laughed then, a rich, odd, genuine sound. "Ah, Jonathan Harker," he said, his voice strangely gentle.

And then, before Jonathan could quite register what was going on, the Count was kissing him, sharp teeth against Jonathan's lips, the coppery taste of blood everywhere. Jonathan kissed him back, desperate for visceral human contact, not caring that this was what Mina had died to avoid, that there were perhaps a dozen reasons why this was sinful, that the Count's hands were wrapped around Jonathan's arms, so tightly they would bruise.

It was the Count who broke the kiss, eventually, standing almost abruptly. "Goodbye, Jonathan," he said, and was gone. The mist of his sudden disappearance put out the candle.

Alone in the house, Jonathan finally cried, like a perfect pane of glass shattering into an innumerable multitude of pieces.


End file.
